


A Life Like That

by longtimegone



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, Mortality, clone!Tenth Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-10
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longtimegone/pseuds/longtimegone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>I've traveled to all sorts of places. Done things you couldn't even imagine, but... you two... street corner. Two in the morning. Getting a taxi home. I've never had a life like that.</em> - Ninth Doctor, <span class="u">Father's Day</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life Like That

The music is thumping and Rose is sweaty and grinning in a way that's probably supposed to be sultry and promising, but is mainly just endearingly drunk. He can feel the slick skin of her shoulders slide under his hands as he moves them down her arms to her hips to pull her against him. Rose can move and he's just kind of awkward, but he doesn't care. Two concoctions of Rose's choosing and he was well lit, allowing himself to be drawn to the dance floor with a hundred other sweaty, awkwardly moving bodies just to press against her and watch her grind against him while he tries to move to the beat of the music in the most unobtrusive way possible.

She's incredibly beautiful like this - all loosened inhibitions, faded makeup on shiny skin and sweat-damp blonde hair curling around her temples - as her hands slide up her ribcage and around her breasts to meet above her head, leaning away from him to swing her hips to the beat of the next indistinguishable techno song that the DJ sends pounding over the loudspeakers.

It's an entirely new kind of adrenaline rush, watching her shimmy in front of him - for him - seemingly uncaring of the mass of people around them. He's not that new so he knows where this goes, but functional immortality probably removes the pressing need to know what the salty skin of her neck tastes like. And that's probably why he doesn't flinch a bit as he feels the double rhythm of his single heart speed up as her leg slides between his and he bends down.

Salt and the cheap alcohol base of her perfume, long since faded and now slightly sour and bitter on his tongue and then he nips on the skin just below the corner of her jaw to feel her jump a bit in his arms. Her heart pounding next to his almost sounds normal as she laughs delightedly and pulls him back down for a surprisingly dirty kiss and he though he knows it's the rum or the vodka or whatever else was in that fruity monstrosity Rose made him drink, he can't imagine at this moment why slowing down for this wouldn't have been worth it.

"Let's go home."

She screams into his ear and he can still barely hear her over the music. Suddenly the club is too hot, and there are too many people around and his dick is bordering on too hard to stay decent in public much longer. He nods and she grabs his hand and twirls ahead of him, pulling him behind her and off the dance floor.

They burst outside the club and the cooler breeze and lack of noise hits him all at once. He's way drunker than he realized and all he wants to do is go back to the hotel and spread her out on the bed and turn them both inside out one last time before they go home. Zeppelin travel with a hangover is a bitch, but jobs and holiday time and money mean that their travels are limited and hell, quite literally, he's only going to live once more.

She senses that his mind has shifted gears and wraps her arms around him from behind, leaning her forehead on his back.

"It's all over too soon, yeah?"

He can hear the sadness in her voice and hates himself a little for dragging them back from their club dancing high, and loves her even more for understanding, even though she can't ever really understand, that five weeks a year on the same planet is never going to be enough.

His brain is wired a bit differently now, but it still reaches out for the warmth of his beautiful ship and seven years has only barely begun to dull the ache of her absence. The first two years were the worst, and of those twenty four months, he stayed with Rose for the first three, leaving after realizing he was too angry at himself in any version to stay with her and not hate her. She (and he) so readily accepted (hoped) that one heart meant that not only would he not regenerate but that the ebb and flow that tied him to time and space would be gone as well. They were both wrong.

"Everything's over too soon, I think. But I'm glad I'm here with you." And he doesn't have to tell her what he means this time.

They walk, slightly sobered, over to the corner to hail a taxi. She winds herself around him, pressing her chest against his as if she knows that the sound and thump of both their hearts soothes him on some level that had nothing to do with her and him. He watches the groups ahead of them pile into taxis in various states of intoxication - all these fragile little humans, desperately metabolizing the alcohol in their systems, hoping they don't screw up, reaching out for one solid connection - one perfect moment of music, lights, liquor and sex - just enough for this night and tomorrow on to something else.

He looks down at Rose as she sleepily blinks up at him. Her eyes are dark and hooded, and he can't tell what she's thinking. A thrill runs through him and makes him pull her closer, because he likes when he has to figure her out and tease out of her the things she doesn't always want him to know.

He wasn't the only one who had to adjust to this new life and he'll never know exactly what those first years were like for her. She's only told him what she wanted to tell him, and he knows, deep in his bones, that there is a part of her that will never completely forgive him for going away. He tries not to dwell on that, though it occasionally galls him, because he doesn't get to corner the market on complicated and messy.

He kisses her forehead, her nose, her mouth, lingering on her lips and pulls back to scan the street. Lifting his hand to hail the oncoming taxi, he checks the time. 2 AM. The breeze is cool and Rose is warm against him as the driver slows for them to get in. She gives the name of their hotel as they crawl across the back seat and she's back in his arms as they pull away from the curb.

Tomorrow is back to work, back home, back to all the million little things that make up their lives, but just now he can smell the sweat and cigarette smoke and alcohol from the dance club and the cheap vinyl of the taxi cab seats and under his fingers he feels the swell of Rose's breast as she takes breath after breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Billie Piper ficathon [here](http://takethewords.livejournal.com/424006.html?thread=6562118#t6581830) on May 10, 2010.


End file.
